davidmarver wrote:I would not call it luck when he pitches in possibly the best pitchers park and has a great bullpen behind him to bail him out of jams. Those drive down ERA's plenty. He still plays in Petco this year with a great bullpen. Expect more of the same.

A few years back, Foulke only had 3 blown saves all year. As luck would have it, all 3 came in Hudson's games. Hudson lost 3 wins do to the bad luck of Foulke blowing saves in his starts. Since you are a Padres fan, let's look how SD sp fared last year in strand rate %. 75% is average. Peavy as noted was at 84%.

David Wells was at 71%
Brian Lawrence 74%
Adam Eaton 68%

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davidmarver wrote:I would not call it luck when he pitches in possibly the best pitchers park and has a great bullpen behind him to bail him out of jams. Those drive down ERA's plenty. He still plays in Petco this year with a great bullpen. Expect more of the same.

A few years back, Foulke only had 3 blown saves all year. As luck would have it, all 3 came in Hudson's games. Hudson lost 3 wins do to the bad luck of Foulke blowing saves in his starts. Since you are a Padres fan, let's look how SD sp fared last year in strand rate %. 75% is average. Peavy as noted was at 84%.

David Wells was at 71%Brian Lawrence 74%Adam Eaton 68%

exactly, Peavy is extraordinarily good at stranding runners. Why would that change?

davidmarver wrote:I didn't find those stats very meaningful. All I remember about them is a formula that obviously, in this case, did not predict it correctly. I don't call it luck, I call it a problem with the formula.

But you find a small sample size of risp meaningful?
DIPS, eERA, ERC, aren't predictions. They are a estimate of what the pitcher's era is under even conditions. They predict nothing. They poke holes in a seasons VARIABLE conditions. No one can predict any pitchers luck for next year, his hit rate %, strand rate %. What those numbers can show you, is how accurate the previous season era was.

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davidmarver wrote:I would not call it luck when he pitches in possibly the best pitchers park and has a great bullpen behind him to bail him out of jams. Those drive down ERA's plenty. He still plays in Petco this year with a great bullpen. Expect more of the same.

A few years back, Foulke only had 3 blown saves all year. As luck would have it, all 3 came in Hudson's games. Hudson lost 3 wins do to the bad luck of Foulke blowing saves in his starts. Since you are a Padres fan, let's look how SD sp fared last year in strand rate %. 75% is average. Peavy as noted was at 84%.

David Wells was at 71%Brian Lawrence 74%Adam Eaton 68%

exactly, Peavy is extraordinarily good at stranding runners. Why would that change?

If he's so good at that, as you say, why was his strand rate 72% in 02, and 75% in 03? You are basing this on a small one year number with runners on, and risp.

Here's a question for you. If Peavy leaves the game with the bases loaded, and Hoffman comes in and gets a out, no runs score. But if Hoffman gives up a 3 run double, and 3 runs score. How exactly did Peavy effect scenerio 1, where no runs get charged to era, versus scenerio 2, where Peavy is charged with 3 runs? Imagine every runner on base when a pitcher leaves. His era depends either way, on whether the rp strands the runners, or lets them score.

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He will typically get a few more runs and a few less RBI's. A wash. Fewer homers (anywhere from 5 to 20, I figure). More SB (about 30 to 1 most likely). Average will be lower (maybe .025 points).

This really comes out to about a wash. I don't like the argument that he'll stop running. He's averaged 29 SB since joining the Phils, with 10 CS as well. So he makes 39 atempts on average. The lowest number of attempts was 29 in his first full year. He has had no major injury in that time and is in good shape. Why does anyone stop running? 1) Injury - he has none. 2) Manager - He's played for at least 2, still running. 3) Getting older. Possible, but he is in his prime still. Any examples of someone who just stopped running cold turkey? I can't think of one off the top of my head that didn't involve #1.

Both are as steady as you could want. I think it is really just a preference as to who you want more.

They interpret, they don't predict... the thing with BPI's (Base performance indicators - those stats that HOOTIE was using) is that some players just buck the trend; some of those guys are Carlos Zambrano, Brandon Webb, and yes, Jake Peavy. They don't do as bad as the BPI's say they should. But there are also cases where they do MUCH MUCH better than BPI's say they should, and Peavy's 2004 season was an example of that. Yes, his xERA was 2.98 or something like that. My formula said 3.08 actually (pre-adjustment); but you factor in Peavy's natural ability to perform better than the BPI's indicate and that 3.08 changes to 2.75. This is already giving Peavy more credit for doing better than the BPI's suggest. So after erasing the luck with BPI's and adding in his skill that isn't reflected by BPI's, his ERA goes to 2.75. Then you compare that to his 2.27 he actually posted.... that's not even even close to being due to skill.

Secret Avatar wrote:"I'm just saying...the ability to bear down and play good, clutch baseball, is not luck."

Agreed 100 percent. In order for that argument to work for Peavey, though, he would have to do a MUCH better job of playing clutch baseball than any other pitcher in the league. Are you saying he has super-human mental fortitude?! He's better in the clutch than RJ, Schilling, the Rocket, or Pedro?! Every other pitcher, both in 2004 and just about anytime in baseball history, with a 1.20 WHIP has an ERA considerably higher than 2.27.

That's the bottom line: in order for Peavey's 2.27/1.20 to make sense as anything other than a statistical anomaly, he had to have done something in 2004 that no other pitcher did, and no other pitcher has ever done.

Here are those pitchers stats last year in (OBA with RISP, OBA with RISP and less than two outs)

So there we have it. You figure a difference in .010 is the equivalent of one run. If he posted Schilling's #'s for here, his ERA would rise to 2.92.

Have I found the magic number?

If anything this should tell you how lucky he was.... I can't believe you're using this as evidence to prove it wasn't a fluke

I don't think there is a single way I could ever convince you the contrary, but I have provided numbers after numbers to support Peavy's continuance, while there have been very little numbers to the contrary.

You cannot argue against the RISP numbers. That is a measure of how clutch a player is.

Wow.... you're not getting my point. I know what Peavy did LAST YEAR, but he won't do taht NEXT YEAR which is the point. He probably won't have the same LUCK.

I don't know why you argue that he didn't benefit greatly from luck.... have you done studies to see the control pitchers have over the stats you mention? Do you have reason to believe it? I'm finished discusiing Peavy... once you name your price for a wager, I'll continue again. Let's see how confident you really are in him.

I'm not going to put monetary value on it since there's no way to ensure you'll pay when I win...we could bet on signatures. You win, I put anything you want in mine...I win, vice versa.

Well you wouldn't need to worry about collecting the money since it's impossible Peavy will be even close to repeating and if not for me already betting my avatar with somebody else, I'd put it up for grabs. You just watch this season.... I think the idea of you realizing that you were wrong about the luck factor will be enough of a prize for me.

to my fellow Padres fan. There is no such thing as clutch. it just doesn't exist.

Now nobody would love to see Jacob repeat as much as I, but I couldn't even begin to count how many times Linebrink bailed him out last season. If you look at Peavy's numbers you will see that after about 75 pitches. Jacobs BAA jumps to around .275 and his WHIP is somewhere 1.4 ... The fact that he got bailed out is ... Luck. Now it would be amazing for his ERA to repeat and it could sure. But the odds, and the number say otherwise.